nonfiction | Nana's Whimsies

I’m not a big fan of nonfiction unless it is a topic about which I have a great interest. Life in the hills of Appalachia is a topic I find entirely compelling. It’s why I am such a fan of fiction – particularly mysteries – that take place in the area designated Appalachia.

Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir written by J.D. Vance, therefore captured my attention despite it being a memoir. I very often find memoirs self-serving and uninteresting. Hillbilly Elegy caught my attention from the get-go, and kept it throughout the book. Well, almost. Even the most interesting memoirs can get tedious when the author is talking about certain points in his or her life.

Mr. Vance is a former Marine who graduated from Yale Law School despite his difficult childhood. He uses the word hillbilly, a term with which I find myself somewhat uncomfortable, despite the fact that I occasionally use it to deprecate myself as part of my humor. I guess that’s why its serious use makes me squirm a bit. Still, he uses it to describe himself and his family.

Vance’s grandparents moved from Kentucky to Ohio when they were newly married. According to the author, a large number of Scotch/Irish Appalachians moved to the so-called Rust Belt following World War II in search of a better life where jobs were plentiful in the mining and manufacturing region. Unfortunately, the poverty, drug abuse, alcoholism, violence, and general dysfunction followed the immigrants. You can take the man (or woman) out of the violence but you can’t take……

The book is not really so much about so-called hillbillies as it is about white working class Americans and how our system has failed them. Vance was mostly parented by his grandmother and grandfather, who were not unblemished themselves, but at least were a constant in his life. His parents were unavailable to him. His mother, in particular, failed him because of ongoing drug addiction. Aunts, uncles, cousins all demonstrated violent behavior and depended on drugs and alcohol to get through their difficult days.

There has been much talk lately about the problem of drug abuse as well as how poorly working class Americans are faring, but Vance’s perspective is different from many as this was his real life, the background from which he came. Drug and alcohol abuse, and general violence, were part of his roots. He credits his grandparents for his success.

Vance’s talk about government’s failings might be anathema to some who believe government assistance is the best way to help fight poverty. But he makes so many good points that I found myself highlighting section after section of my book. And then, unfortunately, returning it to the library.

A very interesting read indeed.

Here is a link to the book.

I don’t read a lot of nonfiction. However, if there is a topic in which I’m interested, a book about that topic that has received pretty good reviews will grab my attention.

The Worst Hard Time was such a book. Author Timothy Egan tells the story of the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s in such a way that it almost reads like a novel. I’m interested in that period of time because my mother and father, having been born in 1926, would have lived through the Great Depression in Nebraska. Though they would have been children, since they lived so close to the area that is designated the Dust Bowl, I’m sure they felt the effects.

Egan tells the story largely through the lives of six or seven families. He takes us through the years leading up to the tragic drought, years that were wetter than usual. The wet weather, along with the need for wheat to feed the troops during World War I, led to plowing up land not meant to be farmed. Subsequently, the drought resulted in land that would normally have been held into place by the natural grasses being literally blown away.

Egan’s stories – really the stories of the families – give a clear picture of an almost-unbelievable period of time in our history. Dust storms, dust-caused illness, famine, insects, and wind, wind, wind that literally drove people mad are presented like a horror story.

I will admit that, not being a particular lover of nonfiction, I sometimes skimmed through information that was particularly scientific in nature or just of little interest to me. But mostly I was riveted to the stories of these amazingly strong and resilient people who lived in the Dust Bowl (the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, a large part of Kansas, southeast Colorado and southern Nebraska).

People must literally have believed that the world was coming to an end. And yet, the area survived.

A wonderful read for anyone interested in U.S. history.

Here is a link to the book.

Nana's Whimsies

Musings of a Baby Boomer….

Tag Archives: nonfiction

Friday Book Whimsy: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Friday Book Whimsy: The Worst Hard Time